Here's a selection of the sites that mentioned Tom or linked here after the Esquire article came out. News organizations + Financial Times + Time + The Guardian + International Herald Tribune + Newsweek + Stars and Stripes + New......

I think advising Bush that war with Iran would be a really, really bad idea, would be interpreted by many as "standing up to the commander in chief."

I certainly think Kevin Drum goes off the edge with his read:

Barnett is pretty clearly implying that if George Bush ordered an attack on Iran, Fallon couldn't be trusted to carry it out.

That is most certainly not implied by Barnett at all. Now, I can see dumbass Bush and Cheney thinking so, but there is no conflict between advising against Plan X and then dutifully carrying out Plan X to the best of your ability.

FOX FALLON....Last night I read Thomas P.M. Barnett's Esquire profile of CENTCOM commander Adm. William Fallon and thought, "Damn. I want someone to write a puff piece like that about me someday." Barnett admiringly portrays Fallon as sort of a......

And isn't the basis of the politicized NIE report that Iran suspended a portion of their nuke program in 2003? Didn't something take place in 2003 in their neighborhood? But anyway, everything's cool now that the NIE has stated that Iran suspended, for an unknown period of time, part of their nuke program. Nothing to see here. All hail Chamberlain!!

When was the last time any administration was able to do so?

The Cuban Missile Crisis, perhaps?

To some degree, Clinton did it with Haiti. Opinions are mixed on whether G.W. Bush did it with Khaddafy.

Since there are no controls, it's hard to know. That is, we don't know what the outcome would have been minus the saber rattling.

Dr. Barnett's article is long but interesting. I do find it somewhat amusing to hear Adm. Fallon praised as our last defense against preemptive war with Iran when it seems just a year ago his appointment was being proclaimed as proof positive that preemptive war with Iran was imminent.

one little driveby did catch my attention in the piece. Dr. Barnett writes:

Past American governments have used saber rattling as a useful tactic to get some bad actor on the world stage to fall in line. This government hasn’t mastered that kind of subtlety.

First, has the Bush Administration successfully used saber rattling to “get some bad actor…to fall in line”? I can't recall off-hand but I don't think so. Did the Clinton Administration? Bush 41? Reagan? Carter? When was the last time any administration was able to do so?

These aren't rhetorical questions. I'd really like to know.